The USDA is currently accepting public comments on a comprehensive plan to relocate nearly half of its Washington, D.C. area employees. Coming after the agency has already seen a significant loss of staff, the USDA’s reorganization could jeopardize essential research functions and disrupt critical services that all farmers rely on.

This comes after the agency has already seen a significant loss of staff, including about one-third of the National Organic Program (NOP) team.

The integrity of the USDA organic seal is a cornerstone of consumer trust, and it depends on a strong, well-staffed NOP. NOP employees are responsible for overseeing the certification process, fraud prevention, and ensuring fair competition for organic farms and businesses. We are deeply concerned that further staff losses resulting from this reorganization could severely weaken the USDA’s ability to safeguard organic integrity.

How to Make Your Voice Heard

The organic market is the fastest-growing sector in the U.S. food market, and NOP staff are essential to sustaining its growth and protecting its standards. We need the organic community to speak out on the USDA’s reorganization plans and urge the agency to preserve the staffing and resources necessary for the NOP to do its job effectively.

To help you get started, here are some key points you can use or adapt in your own words.

Tips for Submitting Your Comment

To ensure your message stands out and is not overlooked, please follow these simple tips before you submit your email:

1. Personalize Your Message: Edit the first paragraph to introduce yourself and your connection to organic agriculture. This will make your comment more impactful and authentic. We also encourage you to personalize the rest of the text as you see fit.
2. Craft a Unique Subject Line: A personalized subject line increases the chance your message will be read.

Here are some example subject lines you can use or adapt:

• As a [Farmer / Consumer / Business Owner], I Urge You to Protect National Organic Program Staff
• As a [Farmer / Consumer / Business Owner], I have Concerns Regarding USDA Reorganization Plans
• Protect the National Organic Program – Pause USDA’s Reorganization Plan
• Don’t Weaken Organic Integrity – Keep the National Organic Program Strong
• Organic Farms & Businesses Depend on a Strong National Organic Program – Please Pause Reorganization
• USDA Reorganization Could Risk National Organic Program Staffing and Resources

Compose Your Letter

Template Letter:

I am writing to express deep concerns with USDA’s recently announced reorganization plans. 

[Introduce yourself — share your name, location, role, and connection to organic agriculture. For example: “I operate a certified organic vegetable farm in [state],” or “I represent a business that sources organic ingredients from farms across the country.” Briefly describe your work and why organic integrity matters to you.]

I have the following concerns with USDA’s recently announced reorganization plans:

• We cannot afford to lose NOP staff and institutional knowledge. NOP staff bring years of specialized expertise in organic regulations, compliance, and enforcement. If this reorganization results in staff departures, we risk losing irreplaceable institutional knowledge that underpins the credibility of the organic label. USDA Organic is a more than $70 billion industry, and the NOP team delivers exceptional value—ensuring marketplace integrity, enforcing rigorous standards, and safeguarding consumer trust with a remarkably small budget relative to the size of the sector. This is one of USDA’s best returns on investment, but training new hires in these complex systems takes years, during which enforcement and policy work can suffer. 
• Face-to-face engagement in D.C. is vital. During fly-ins and advocacy days, organic farmers and businesses travel to Washington, D.C., to meet directly with USDA staff. Because organic encompasses every commodity sector, these meetings allow NOP to coordinate with multiple agricultural groups at once. Moving NOP leadership and core staff away from D.C. will make it logistically harder for farmers and stakeholders to meet with the people who enforce and uphold organic standards. Without this in-person access, USDA will be less responsive and less equipped to address the real-world needs of organic farms and businesses. 
• Most NOP staff are already field-based. The NOP employees who are currently based in D.C. provide essential coordination, policy, and interagency functions. Further dispersing this already limited D.C. team risks fragmenting communication, slowing decision-making, and weakening oversight at the national level.
  
• Collaboration with other agencies is essential to protecting organic integrity. NOP’s ability to protect organic integrity depends on close, ongoing partnerships with other federal agencies. One of the most critical collaborations is with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to prevent fraud at ports of entry. This partnership is so important that NOP has a staff member physically embedded within CBP to access sensitive information, such as ship manifests and data on fraudulent actors in international trade, and to coordinate directly with CBP personnel to stop fraudulent organic imports before they enter U.S. markets. Beyond CBP, NOP works closely with other USDA agencies—including the Farm Service Agency (FSA), the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), and the Risk Management Agency (RMA)—to coordinate with broader USDA programs that support U.S. farms and businesses. Reducing the number of NOP staff in Washington, D.C. would make these interagency connections harder to maintain, undermining both enforcement and farmer access to essential USDA resources.

Beyond organic, this reorganization could also jeopardize USDA’s essential research functions and disrupt critical services that farmers across all sectors rely on.

I urge you to immediately pause implementation of this reorganization plan to ensure that U.S. farms and businesses—including certified organic operations—retain the tools, staffing, and resources they need to thrive.

Send Your Comments

 

*Thank you to NOC for sharing these comment materials for farmers and supporters!